Speaking from personal experience, I believe some of it has to do with the perceived loss of optionality we experience when “documenting” (writing down) our current thinking. People tend to feel committed to, and accountable for, information or opinions captured in writing, which can be uncomfortable or anxiety-inducing when any amount of uncertainty or importance is involved (it’s not fun to have proof you were wrong). I agree with the other comments that in-person meetings or phone calls save time in coordinating groups and reaching consensus, but it also allows people to qualify and clarify thinking as they go, resulting in what feels like a smooth evolution of thinking as opposed to the seemingly discontinuous and inelegant show of changing your mind after being corrected or learning new information via asynchronous communication. I think you make a good point about the interpretive freedom in-person meetings provide. I bet this type of research is being done by business or management consultants, who are always trying to find ways to improve coordination make people more productive in groups.
it also allows people to qualify and clarify thinking as they go, resulting in what feels like a smooth evolution of thinking as opposed to the seemingly discontinuous and inelegant show of changing your mind after being corrected or learning new information via asynchronous communication.
This gets exactly to the core of the potential I see: groups get stuck in a local equilibrium where progress happens and everybody is content but the payoff from going meta and improving self-knowledge and transparency would compound over time—and that seems to be easier to achieve in written form, exactly because people can’t ignore their kinks. And that seems harmful at first because vulnerability does but in many environments it could easily lead to very productive dynamics because then everybody can help one another become the best possible version of themselves, more easily insure each other,
Speaking from personal experience, I believe some of it has to do with the perceived loss of optionality we experience when “documenting” (writing down) our current thinking. People tend to feel committed to, and accountable for, information or opinions captured in writing, which can be uncomfortable or anxiety-inducing when any amount of uncertainty or importance is involved (it’s not fun to have proof you were wrong). I agree with the other comments that in-person meetings or phone calls save time in coordinating groups and reaching consensus, but it also allows people to qualify and clarify thinking as they go, resulting in what feels like a smooth evolution of thinking as opposed to the seemingly discontinuous and inelegant show of changing your mind after being corrected or learning new information via asynchronous communication. I think you make a good point about the interpretive freedom in-person meetings provide. I bet this type of research is being done by business or management consultants, who are always trying to find ways to improve coordination make people more productive in groups.
This gets exactly to the core of the potential I see: groups get stuck in a local equilibrium where progress happens and everybody is content but the payoff from going meta and improving self-knowledge and transparency would compound over time—and that seems to be easier to achieve in written form, exactly because people can’t ignore their kinks. And that seems harmful at first because vulnerability does but in many environments it could easily lead to very productive dynamics because then everybody can help one another become the best possible version of themselves, more easily insure each other,
etc.